


Night of the Unexpected

by TheGreatLibraryFangirl (Mazeem)



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: A night to contemplate the cracks, Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 18:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16522175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazeem/pseuds/TheGreatLibraryFangirl
Summary: Santi's prepared to deal with Wolfe's cracks. He's not prepared to deal with Thomas' too.





	Night of the Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in some imaginary time post book 4, where nothing new has kicked off yet and they're all just waiting for it. (Like us, waiting for book 5)

Santi had expected to be woken up at some point that night. It had been a difficult few days of him and Jess Brightwell traipsing various Scholars over to the torture room in Rome so that they could all see the horrors that had been overseen by the Artifex for themselves.

Wolfe had been cracking a little more every day, with snarls and glares that most people wouldn’t have noticed, and that night at dinner he had covered his wineglass when Santi went to fill it. Usually nothing stood between Wolfe and his wine, but from painful experience over the last few years they’d both learnt that there were moods which were best faced sober.

Yes, Santi had gone to bed expecting to be kicked awake by flailing limbs, or jolted awake by shouting or crying. What he hadn’t expected was something with much less history to it: his scarred, burnt arm from Philadelphia.

Although Morgan’s power had healed it better than it should have healed, the wound was still relatively new and Santi hadn’t exactly had much time to rest it. The scar tissue was soft and fragile, and it ripped and blistered easily. For example, if it was rolled on too much in the night.

So he woke up in pain. Rolling onto his other side, he gingerly prodded the area of his forearm. Definitely wet. Fluid or blood? Too sleepy to open his eyes and strain, he popped the finger into his mouth.

Metallic.

He groaned out loud. He was going to have to get up and bandage the arm, put something over the top of the bloodstained sheet. He’d once had a nosebleed when Wolfe was in a precarious mental state, just before they’d forced Wolfe to take charge of the postulants, and waking up in a bloody bed wasn’t … wasn’t good for him.

“Nic?”

Santi swore in his mind. He’d already woken Wolfe up? Then his brain shook off the last dregs of sleep and processed the tone of Wolfe’s voice. His stomach sank. He hurriedly sat upright and turned to Wolfe’s side of the bed.

“Chris...” The name hissed out of him in an aching sigh.

Wolfe was sat upright, and in a position that in a younger, more flexible man would have been described as hugging his knees. His face was shining with tears in the faint moonlight, and what little Santi could make out of his face was as scared as he had seen Wolfe for a long time. His chest was rising and falling rapidly but soundlessly – Santi didn’t want to think about how painful it was to suppress sobs that hard.

He shuffled closer and telegraphing clearly, put a hand on Wolfe’s arm. It was cool. How long had he been sat here, frozen?

“Nic,” came the hoarse whisper, “I think there’s someone outside.”

Ridiculously, this settled Santi’s stomach a little. He could deal with this particular fear. That said;

“I told you to wake me if you wanted a perimeter check,” he complained. That was the agreement they had come to a long time ago, after Santi had realised that Wolfe was prowling the house with a loaded weapon rather than sleep in fear.

Wolfe gave him a bleak, hopeless look. “If you were asleep, they might not take you,” he muttered, and then instantly uttered a rasping laugh and rubbed his face hard with his hand. Too late. Santi had heard that.

He leaned over and kissed Wolfe gently on his damp, stubbly cheek. “No-one is taking you again, Chris. And if they do, I’m coming too.”

He got out of bed and reached for his sidearm, switching it to stun. Ever a soldier, he began a thorough sweep. Fully expected it to turn up nothing.

Today was a day for incorrect expectations, because sure enough once he’d gone a certain distance into the central room he could hear the sounds of someone breathing and shifting around outside the door. The hairs went up on his arms; Wolfe’s fear was contagious.

It was probably just one of the Obscurists. They often did strange things like nocturnal wanderings. Everything was new to them.

Despite this strict logical thought process, his heart was racing as he approached the door. He might not have Wolfe’s scarred-deep memory of being snatched from this very house, but he’d spent more than his fair share of time running and hiding and evading people since Oxford had started everything off. Fought enough automata not to feel safe in Alexandria. Fought enough friends not to feel safe anywhere.

Not for the first time, he regretted not installing a peephole.

He gripped the door handle with one hand and his weapon with the other, angling it downwards so that he stood a chance of not shooting an innocent civilian but far up enough that he knew he could get a centre shot in an eyeblink.

And – open.

* * *

 

Not to sound repetitive, but he hadn’t expected that.

Thomas Schreiber was sat opposite their door, hunched up against the wall and looking … well, almost as bad as Wolfe.

Which … made sense. Santi kicked himself, and wondered if any of their group had spotted Thomas crumbling.

They stared at each other in surprised silence for several seconds. Thomas broke it first by joking, with a weak, watery smile,

“Were you going to shoot me?”

Santi shrugged. “Well, that’s what you get for sitting outside people’s houses in the dead of night.” He twitched, hit by two conflicting impulses: help Thomas, help Wolfe. Yes, so the winner was obvious, but just to salve his conscience he said, “Will you be all right out here for a moment more?” and got a solemn nod in response.

Good. He whirled on his heel back into the house, where he expected to see Wolfe still frozen on the bed.

Instead, and to his frustration and dismay, he found Wolfe on his feet and walking towards the bedroom door. Well, staggering on bloodless legs. Santi stepped directly in front of him.

“No,” he said firmly. Wolfe gave him a glare that managed to still be effective through red rims and clogged eyelashes.

“That sounded like Thomas,” he said by way of an answer, and tried to press on. His voice was a wavering, choked mess too.  Santi grabbed him (gently) by the shoulders.

“I know better than to ask you to stay put, but please, Chris, just give yourself five minutes.” He brushed one hand over Wolfe’s swollen, still wet face and down over his bare, scarred and pitted chest. Felt the tremors running through his lover, so fine that Wolfe probably hadn’t acknowledged them yet. “You’ll scare the boy witless if he sees you like this.”

Wolfe drew breath in sharply, and Santi could almost feel the shame settling over him like a cloak. He winced. He hadn’t meant to cause that.

“He looks physically fine, and mentally, well, he’s probably bearing up better than you. I’ll find out if anything specific has happened, and you come out when you’re ready.”

Wolfe gave him a black look that definitely meant “I’m ready  _now_ ,” but he turned around and trudged back to the bedroom. With a sigh, Santi turned back to the front door and opened it again.

“You’re bleeding,” Thomas observed, as Santi waved him into the main room.

Santi had forgotten. “Oh, that. It happens.” He lit the light and peered at his arm. Quite a lot of blood. “It looks worse than it is.” He gestured at the table and chairs. “Let’s sit down.”

Thomas folded himself into a chair. He always managed to make furniture look small, even though he still hadn’t managed to put enough weight back on.

None of them had, really. 

“We should all have expected you would be struggling,” Santi said as he sat. From the way that Thomas’ eyes flickered to the bedroom door, he had definitely caught the loudly unsaid ‘too’ there. “Did something happen or is it just a bad night?”

Thomas stared at the table. Santi knew the signs of someone working themselves up to say something, so stayed quiet.

“I was … half-awake, I suppose, and Jess … startled me, because he hadn’t been in the room when I’d gone to sleep, and … I punched him in the face.”

Santi tried so desperately to suppress his snort of laughter that he felt his eyes pop out. If there was anyone who he felt needed an occasional punch, it was Jess, and, personal feelings aside, if there was any one of their little group best qualified to roll with a punch to the face – literally – it was also Jess.

“Why was Jess in the room anyway?”

Thomas stared at the table some more. “I don’t like sleeping alone.”

Santi nodded. He should have anticipated that. 

“Let’s see your hand, then.” He put his hand out, indicating that Thomas should reach out too.

Thomas looked bewildered, in a way Santi recognised from a lot of concussed High Garda as meaning “I’m not  _compos mentis_  enough to know if this is something I should be understanding or not”.

“I might not be Medica cross-trained, but I’ve seen a lot of aftereffects of punches. I doubt you know how hard you hit Jess, do you?”

Thomas shook his head and a nauseated expression crossed his face. Shit, bad phrasing, Santi scolded himself. He hurried to explain. “I’ll be able to get a decent idea by examining your hand. I’ll talk you through it.”

Thomas made a small noise of assent and stretched his hand out across the table, palm up. Santi took it to turn his hand the other way around, knuckles up, and felt the chill of Thomas’ skin.

“How long were you outside for?” he demanded, shoving his chair back and heading for the pile of blankets they kept in the corner for winter. Thomas gave him a surprised look and a soft puff of laughter.

“A little while. You know it never really gets cold here.”

“God damned Germans,” Santi muttered, and threw the blanket over him anyway. He sat down and returned his attention to Thomas’ hand. From one look he knew that the punch hadn’t hit hard (Jess was very, very fast after all) but he carried on anyway.

“Your knuckles aren’t split or particularly swollen so that’s good … does this hurt?” He pushed on the knuckles.

Thomas shrugged. “A little.”

Maybe he’d clipped a jawbone or something. He scraped a fingernail against a smear of tacky dried blood on Thomas’ second knuckle, and Thomas flinched so hard that he nearly wrenched his hand free by accident. Santi stopped examining and just squeezed Thomas’ hand for a few seconds as comfortingly as he could.

“It’s all right. That’s so little blood you could have just knocked the scab off a pimple.”

Thomas didn’t quite laugh, but the shiny, blank look lifted from his eyes. Pleased, Santi asked him to clench his hand into a fist and then stretch his fingers out wide.

“And what about this? Any pain?” Santi pressed down on a spot on the back of Thomas’ hand, just underneath the knuckle of his little finger. 

“No.” Thomas tilted his head to one side, and Santi rejoiced at the sign of his curiosity rearing its usually ever-present head. “Why that specific area?” 

“Something a Medica told me once. When this bone breaks they call it the “punch fracture,” and laugh at anyone who comes to them and claims they slapped a wall, or fell over, or pretty much anything that isn’t punching something really hard.” 

Thomas’ eyes glazed over for a second and he gently mimed a punch. “I see that. it’s a force question.” 

“Only you two could make and be enjoying a classroom lecture from a punch.”

Wolfe’s voice made them both jump. Santi nearly fell off his chair as he spun around to see Wolfe come out of the bedroom.

He’d done a superficially good job: his greying hair was pulled neatly back, he’d washed his face and he was fully covered in an old Scholar’s robe. But all Santi could see was everything else; the red, wet rims to his eyes and the crumpled, wary edges to his expression. The way that his hands were hidden in his sleeves to hide what Santi was sure was a strong case of the post-adrenalin shakes. 

There was a scuffling sound from behind him - Thomas fighting with his chair. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt!” Ah, so even Thomas could see the cracks. “Sorry, I’ll -”

“Sit  _down_ , Schreiber,” Wolfe snapped, in just the same imperious, sour voice he had used when Thomas had been a postulant. 

Thomas sat.

Wolfe nodded as he pulled up his own chair, which, Santi thought, was as close as his lover would get to revealing he was surprised that had worked. 

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Thomas mumbled again. Wolfe rolled his eyes.

“Well, you did, and apologising won’t change that.”

“ _Chris_!” 

Wolfe gave Santi a long, defiant look, but then it faded. He turned back to Thomas. 

“It’s not been a good night for either of us, Schreiber.” 

They were all silent for a moment. Then Thomas asked, in a voice suddenly thick with tears,

“Does it ever get better?”

Santi felt his stomach drop. “Yes,” he said, immediately and strongly, but Thomas’ eyes were fixed on Wolfe. 

Wolfe sighed and ran his hands through his hair, quickly enough that Santi  _almost_ didn’t notice his fingers whitening with the pressure. “It does get better,” he said, in a low, colourless voice, not looking anyone in the eyes, “but it does help if you don’t end up back in there again.” 

Santi felt the familiar surge of rage swell up hot and bitter in his chest. He’d just about stopped wanting to hurt Jess whenever he saw him. Just about. 

But, he reminded himself, now isn’t the place for your issues. Carefully, consciously, he un-gritted his teeth and relaxed his fists. Realised Thomas was looking at him and went hot all over again, this time with embarrassment. 

“Jess doesn’t understand,” Thomas said. It wasn’t the defensive statement that Santi would have expected. It was slow and sombre and mournful, and said more clearly than a direct explanation how much Thomas wished Jess  _did_  understand. 

“Mmm,” was the best that Santi could do in response. Jess understood more than Khalia, Dario, Morgan or Glain, put it that way. He'd seen Wolfe in moments of weakness. He’d caused more than a few of those moments. And he’d still made that decision. 

“Oh, get over yourself, Nic,” Wolfe said in a voice so tired that it lacked all bite. Santi leaned over and covered Wolfe’s hand with his own with a brief squeeze, stroking up his forearm and mentally cataloguing weight loss and degree of tremor. Wolfe gave him a dark sideways look but didn’t pull away. It was a well-trod battle, and they always reached an impasse. How could he ever forgive Jess when he was directly responsible for the worsening health of the love of Santi’s life?

“But are  _you_ all right, Captain?” Thomas’ question seemed to come out of nowhere. Santi stared at him in blank incomprehension. Wolfe shifted in his chair and made the soft sound in the back of his throat that meant he was focusing now. 

“… Yes, of course.” 

Thomas ducked his head away, flushing a little pink. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything. I know Jess has been finding those … those trips difficult. Some days he can’t quite look me in the eye.” He chuckled, sadly. “I think he thinks I haven’t noticed.” 

Santi couldn’t think of an immediate response to that, other than to insist, “I’m fine.” He jumped as Wolfe’s hand landed suddenly on his arm and started prodding the area around his broken scar experimentally. “Ow, Christopher, what the -”

“Hmm, of course you’re fine,” Wolfe said. His voice had suddenly developed that silky tone of satisfaction that always made Santi grind his teeth. 

“What?” He snapped the ‘t’ harder than he meant to, and was surprised when neither of them flinched. “This?” He scrubbed at the drying blood. “It’s just a ripped scar. I just rolled on it.”

Wolfe croaked a laugh and shook his head. Thomas dragged the blanket further around himself, but tilted his head in interest. 

“Nic, you scratch when you’re stressed.” Wolfe’s hand slid down his arm and tangled with Santi’s hand. Begrudgingly Santi accepted the hold. He could see where this was going and it was ridiculous. “I’ve seen you scratch that scar raw for the past 3 days, without even realising you’re doing it.”

“Well, aren’t you a genius?” Santi muttered. In a call and response that went back twenty years, Wolfe replied,

“Yes, I am.”

“Even for people without … experience, Captain, it’s not a nice place,” Thomas said. “It is foolish to pretend you’re unaffected. You’d be an awful person, not to be affected.” 

Santi grunted in acknowledgement and waved his hand as if that would make the awkward conversation go away. Wolfe let out a quiet hum of amusement, and Santi pointedly let go of his hand and folded his arms.

“I still can’t believe that I hit Jess,” Thomas said, out of the blue. The hitch of tears was back in his voice. “I hate that I can be violent. It … I’m scared …. of myself. I don’t trust myself.” 

It all came out in a wobbly rush, along with several fat tears. This was it, Santi saw, this was what had really driven him from his bed in the hope that Wolfe could reassure him. 

Wolfe shrugged. “I once bit straight through Nic’s tongue while we were kissing because I suddenly didn’t trust any of my senses that what I was experiencing was real.”

(Santi remembered that. It had been an … interesting injury to live down in the barracks.)

Wolfe reached across the table and held Thomas’ hand with both his own. “They broke us, in there.” Thomas shuddered. Wolfe’s voice was low and gentle. “You’re not a berserker by nature, and I’m not insane, but sometimes those things spill out because that was how we protected ourselves.” 

Thomas gave him a wet, shocked look. “How…” He settled himself. “Yes. I would get angry and violent because sometimes they would leave me alone for five more minutes.”

Wolfe nodded. “And then eventually they found what you were doing and twisted it further, right? Out of your control?”

Thomas looked almost scared now, as he made a sound of agreement. Wolfe snorted through his nose. The harshness came back to his face. 

“I’m not a mind-reader, Schreiber. It’s the same shit they did to me. Same shit they did to everyone in there, I suspect.”

There was a loud series of knocks at the door. Everybody jumped. Wolfe hugged himself in a way that Santi knew meant the shock had made him nauseous, and muttered,

“Brightwell.”

“Jess?” Thomas got up and hurried to the door. Sure enough, Jess Brightwell was stood on their doorstep, looking slightly frantic and very relieved.

“Finished the disappearing act?” he demanded. Thomas laughed and hugged him. Then alarm crossed his face. 

“Sorry if I scared you.”

“I wouldn’t say  _scared_ ,” Jess scoffed. But of course, Santi remembered, he had found Thomas’ room ransacked and empty on that night that seemed so long ago. 

“Well, try not to frighten each other any more tonight, for heaven’s sake,” he said firmly, standing up and moving towards the door to dismiss them. “Some of us need to sleep.” 

Jess’ face flashed defiance but his eyes flicked to Wolfe, and he deflated. “Yessir.”

“And …” Santi took a breath. “Perhaps we should take a break on Rome, for a few days at least.”

Jess’ face went carefully blank. “That sounds like a good idea, sir.”

 _Show some weakness_ , Santi complained inside his head.  _Join the rest of us_.

“We’ll finish this conversation another time, Schreiber,” said Wolfe, from his hunched up position at the table. 

Thomas ducked his head. “Thank you, Scholar Wolfe.” He smiled at Santi. “And thank you, Captain.”

* * *

 

Santi let out a long, slow breath as the boys’ footsteps receded. He walked over to Wolfe and squeezed his shoulder. Wolfe raised his head from his hands. 

“Hello,” he said. He looked exhausted. To Santi’s surprise, Wolfe reached up and grabbed the back of his neck to pull him down for a long, slow, soft kiss. Santi sank into it like it was a warm bath. Kissing Wolfe always made things better. 

When Wolfe pulled away, there was a tiny spark of mischief in his eyes. “You weren’t expecting that, were you, Nic?” 

Santi helped Wolfe stand; his legs had gone stiff again. Santi’s neck was twinging from the angle of the kiss. God, they were getting old. “Chris,” he said with a snort, “I didn’t expect  _anything_ that happened tonight.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> *rolls in Wolfe angst*
> 
> I have many theories and head canons about Thomas' violence appearing after his torturing, so I thought I'd insert one of them here. 
> 
> I tried to get a close to canon voice for this - though I also have a goofy AU idea already, oops - so please let me know what you think. :)


End file.
